Many people have memories of meeting garden columnist Dulcy Mahar when she opened the gate to her Southeast Portland residence for wildly successful fundraising tours and other events.

Longtime readers of The Oregonian who empathized with the late writer's witty stories were inspired to do as Dulcy did: Wrestle beauty from "plain Jane" lawns.

Linda Kenney's pampered property was on some of the same tours as Dulcy's gardens.

Kenney had already designed her landscaping and chosen plants based on foliage color and size before she saw Dulcy's place for the first time. Still, the popular writer's garden "was very awesome and did get me into elephant (ear plants)," says Kenney.

When Kenney and her husband bought their Southeast Portland house 22 years ago, the yard was stuck in the 1960s with a lawn, junipers and rhodies. Little by little, the lawn disappeared, she says.